In the Garden
From
The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives
page 166
Interviewee: Octavia George
Age 85 years old
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
"I was born in Mansieur, Louisiana, Avoir Parish. I am the daughter
of Alfred and Clementine Joseph. I don't know much about my grand-parents
other than my mother told me my grandfather=s name was Fransuai, and
was one time a king in Africa.
Most of the slaves lived in log cabins, and the beds were homemade.
The mattresses were made out of moss gathered from trees, and we used
to have lots of fun gathering that moss to make those mattressesl.
I remember
quite well how those poor little children used to have to eat. They
were fed corn meal mush and beans. When this was poured into their box
they would gather around it same as we see pigs, horses and cattle gather
around troughs today.
We were never given any money, but were able to get a little money this
way: our master would let us have two or three acres of land each year
to plant for ourselves, and we could have what we raised on it. We could
not allow our work on these two or three acres to interfere with Master's
work, but we had to work our little crops on Sundays.
Now mind you, all the Negroes didn't get these two or three acres, only
good masters allowed their slaves to have a little crop of their own.
We were allowed to have a garden and from this we gathered vegetables
to eat... "
Interviewee: Hal Hutson
Age 90 years.
Oklahoma City, Okla.
"Master
Brown owned about 36 or 40 slaves. I can't recall jest now, and about
200 acres of ground. There was very little cotton raised in Galveston-
I mean jest some corn. Sometimes we would shuck corn all night. He would
not let us raise gardens of our own, but didn't mind us raising corn
and a few other truck vegetables to sell for a little spending change."
Interviewee:
Chaney Richardson
Age 90 years
Fort Gibson, Okla.
"I was born in the old Caney settlement southeast of Tahlequah on the banks of Caney Creek. Off to the north we could see the big old ridge of Sugar Mountain when the sun shine on him first thing in the morning when we all getting up.
Mammy eat at our own cabin, and we had lots of game meat and fish the boys get in the Caney Creek. Mammy bring down deer meat and wild turkey sometimes, that the Indian boys git on Sugar Mountain.
Then we had corn bread, dried
beans, and green stuff out'n Master's patch. Mammy make the bean bread
when we git short of corn meal and nobody going to the grist mill right
away. She take and bile the beans and mash then up in some meal and
that make it go a long ways.
The slaves didn't have no garden cause they work in the old Master's garden and make enough for everybody to have some anyway."
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